The fact that rosé is a hot ticket these days is hardly news to winos who have strolled the aisles of their local shop or eyeballed a restaurant wine list recently. A decade ago pink wine was considered the height (nadir?) of bad wine taste, probably best exemplified by the sweet white zinfandels that flooded the market in the mid to late 1980s. No wine was less cool than a pink one then. But today you can’t swing a dead cat in a decent wine store in America without knocking over bottles of excellent rosé from practically every viticultural region on earth, including the U.S.
Those white zins made it tough for serious American producers to justify making pink wines that they’d be proud to sign their names to, so very few decent domestic rosés made it out of winery tasting rooms and onto retailers’ shelves. But the situation began to change about five years ago, roughly when consumers felt comfortable enough to dip their toes back into the European—especially French—pink wine pool. At the beginning of the new millennium one might find a Bandol rosé or a Tavel in a shop but little else. Not, it’s no shock to for a store to offer literally dozens of rosés. And most of these wines are good, even really good. It’s a comment on the changing face of the American market that many wines that were shunned less than a decade ago now sell out almost immediately.
Some of America’s best wineries have paid attention to this trend and are now making pink wines, especially from French varieties, that bear comparison to the best in the world. Rosés are no longer simply a way to get rid of excess juice, or to blend away overproduction, as my extensive tastings for my annual rosé feature in the International Wine Cellar confirmed again this year. Rosés are good for cash flow, and the best of them are ideal wines for warm-weather drinking.
One of the first producers to make a meaningful amount of rosé that could match up to traditional versions from Provence was Randall Grahm, whose Bonny Doon Vineyard has made, seemingly, every possible style of wine from every variety grown over the last 30 years. One of the constants for Grahm has been his rosé and it’s better than ever in recent vintages. The 2009 Vin Gris de Cigare California ($15), a southern France lookalike made from traditional varieties, especially grenache, offers a dry, mineral-driven set of red fruit and herb flavors that make it especially compatible with summer fare. A boatload of this wine is made so it’s easy to track down.
More difficult to find but worth the effort is the 2009 Bedrock Wine Company Ode to Lulu Rosé of Mourvèdre Sonoma Valley ($20), which bears a very strong resemblance to its inspiration, Bandol, and especially to its most famous producer, Domaine Tempier. Its strikingly deep and intense fruit and herbal and floral character are rare to find at this price.
Pinot noir is a great variety for producing pink wines as it tends to emphasize fresh fruit and is naturally high in acidity. From Oregon, the 2009 Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Edition Rosé Dundee Hills ($20) delivers a complex array of red fruit and floral qualities, with a combination of bright acidity and surprising heft that makes it particularly well suited for richer foods. Also from Oregon, look for the 2009 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Rosé Willamette Valley ($19), which offers sweet red fruit flavors and refreshingly brisk acidity, with good punch as well.
California’s highly regarded Calera Wine Company has an outstanding value in its 2009 Vin Gris of Pinot Noir Central Coast ($16), a wine that shows striking energy to its spicy red berry flavors. Another pink pinot to seek out is the 2009 Copain Wine Cellars Rosé Tous Ensemble Anderson Valley ($17). This beauty is racy, pure and incredibly easy to drink while also offering uncommon complexity of aroma and flavor.
I recently published notes on a hundred of my favorite new rosés from around the world in the IWC; you can gain access to this article and more than 80,000 other tasting notes for as little as $19.95 for a two-month subscription.
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